Cutting $25m a year

Distributor Ingram Micro is looking for annual savings of $25m a year at its North American operation and will offshore some processes and cut jobs to make it happen.

Ingram Micro is making a final decision between two offshoring providers. It expects to have reached a decision by the end of the month.

Transaction processing, support, customer service and some technical support will be moved offshore. The changes will see 550 people lose their jobs. Field sales and management jobs will not be moving.

The disty estimates the changes will cost about $26m. But this should bring in savings of $10m in 2005, rising to $25m a year by the first quarter of 2006.